New Dynamic Script Ideas

[Krom]

As of current, KMR does not support non-linear campaigns, so opening any mission will open all preceding missions.
However it would be interesting to have such a non-linear campaign

[Lewin]

Non-linear campaigns would be cool. It wouldn't be that hard to implement. We could have script commands for locking/unlocking missions, and a command to set the next mission. Any other considerations/ideas?

[Krom]

Non-linear campaigns can generally come in 3 fashions:
1. Straight line with side-quests - player can play through ALL missions in one go. Optional side branches can be played without skipping any of the main line missions.
2. Branched - where player has to choose missions he WON'T play in this campaign.
3. Reverse-branched - where player can start with several unlocked missions, that come in parallel paths and join in the end.

Option #2 is a poor choice IMO, since it takes content from the player. In order to fully play the campaign player will have to restart it (or reload missions before branches) and break the story.
Option #3 would be quite interesting, as player now has a choice of missions to play without skipping on any of the content.

TL;DR: Campaign is more of a story/book, with a fixed story arc. But the arc can advance in parallel paths till grand final.

[Lewin]

@Krom: I agree, and I also like Esthlos' idea of returning to your base after each mission. We should give script authors the power to implement any of these ideas. Are these commands sufficient?:
- CampaignSetNextMission(MissionNumber: Integer);
- CampaignSetLocked(MissionNumber: Integer; Locked: Boolean);

The default next mission is current mission + 1. The next mission will always be unlocked obviously. Players can still select any other unlocked mission.

Problems:
- It's not obvious when you are selecting a mission you have already played, or choosing between two paths. We probably need some indication of which missions have been played already. Especially since the flags have numbers on them (so optional side quest would show number 6, and continuing the story number 7). Probably need to not show numbers somehow in this case?

[Krom]

@Lewin: Sounds good to me.

We can look into adding 3rd type of mission flags: "Beaten". So there are locked missions, beaten ones and ones available-but-not-played-yet.

I think we need to allow to set custom mission tags instead of numbers, so e.g. available missions are titled A-B-C-D or 5a-5b-5c or even hidden.

I also like how this allows for seemingly endless/looped campaigns. E.g. player can fight with AIs over controlling 10-20 areas.

[thunder]

Hello!
Could you implement a dynamic script command which could write out pareameters or values into a specified empty .csv file what the scripters could use after the games?
This file could be written out in the replay folder.
Almost like the log file of the dynamic scripted maps.
This kind of command would extend the possiblities in front of the scripters. Not in front of me.

[Strangelove]

Optional Mission would be a very nice addition to existing and campaigns that are in the works! It would make it way easier to include additional missions without breaking anything.

Hello!
Could you implement a dynamic script command which could write out pareameters or values into a specified empty .csv file what the scripters could use after the games?
This file could be written out in the replay folder.
Almost like the log file of the dynamic scripted maps.
This kind of command would extend the possiblities in front of the scripters. Not in front of me.

Something simular already exists. I just don't think it has been used in any campaign yet. At least not to my knowledge.

[thunder]

Hello!

It is not a new idea, but is there any possibility to optimalizate the OnTick event?
I had the 3rd script idea which can not use the OnTick because the massive lags. Only 1 player. and huge lags.
for example I want to observe one value in time and if that is 'mod3' than act one or two commands.
But even this simple script idea is causing massive lags.
I wanted to use this StatProducedResource states and checked it every seconds on only one specified value and caused lags..almost zero movements by units. After increased this chceking time to 10 seconds still had th same lag problem.
And as I see there are other scripts too which would use those OnTick, but seems the performance will be very bad.(just for one example the FoW script.)
This OnTick event gives the only possibility to modifie very basic things, like production times.
Is there possibility to add better performance for it?
OR could you add new event commands? For exmaple OnHouseProduced wares(HouseID:intger,ProducedWares:integer,Count:integer);

Many Thanks!

t

[Rey]

Hi, t!

Can you provide short script where you have problems with lags as example? Then I will see what we can do.

Thx!

[sado1]

Are you spreading the load correctly? You are not supposed to do everything in onTick every single tick. You should have something like, if States.GameTime mod 10 = 0 then... (or mod 10 + PlayerID but it's not useful with one player), which makes the game do everything in ontick every 10 ticks instead of every 1 tick. I still want to see the example, maybe your problem is different.

[thunder]

Thanks sado!
I basicly used this part from your script and used even larger values too, But I need continously monitoring one value and the furthue actions would be baseed on that. Today I could manage a bit better performance and alreadyy almost finish what I wanted to programming.
But for making better working scripts I still would need to know how can I create a matrix to store the house ids too:D
So maybe this project will be freezing a little bit. I want to check over one by one the wares state on the specified house in the array.
I would like to use array in array. I forgot lot about how programming.
I will try to workaround this too.

[Strangelove]

Would it be possible to implement the support of some kind of library-file to put and from where you can load all your own procedures and functions? It would be quite convenient to not have to copy all that stuff in pretty much every map I make. I would also make the script files of each map much more compact and readable.

[Ben]

Would it be possible to implement the support of some kind of library-file to put and from where you can load all your own procedures and functions? It would be quite convenient to not have to copy all that stuff in pretty much every map I make. I would also make the script files of each map much more compact and readable.

This would be really cool. Implement it just so we can nerd out!

[Rey]

Would it be possible to implement the support of some kind of library-file to put and from where you can load all your own procedures and functions? It would be quite convenient to not have to copy all that stuff in pretty much every map I make. I would also make the script files of each map much more compact and readable.

It's done already.
You can include scripts one into another, up to 20 depth.
Also added support for pascal style directives, smth like

  Code:

{$DEFINE SMTH} .... {$IFDEF SMTH} some special code {$ENDIF}

Directives and included files are preprocessed into one script.
Also line and position (and file, since there could couple of them) are shown on any error/warning.

Not sure that directives are very usufull, but include is a very nice feature indeed.

[Strangelove]

Oh wow, didn't know it was implemented already! I have never seen anybody using it before. Is there a documentation on how to use it and if so, where can I find it?